Chapter 5

Proofs drawn from the passive and active operations of the soul

440. I have shown elsewhere that sensitive operations require a simple principle. A multiple or extended principle could not produce them without contradiction.(188) Sensitive operations, however, are of two kinds, passive and active, and I restricted myself to demonstrating the simplicity of the sensitive soul from the passive operations of feeling. Similar proofs can, however, be drawn from the active operations of instinct.

441. Proofs of the simplicity of the soul deduced from both passive and active animal operations are divided into three classes. Each of the following considerations shows equally that the sentient principle is simple.

1. The sensation of the extended-continuum cannot take place in any way without the presence of a simple principle capable of feeling in itself, and all at once, total continual extension.

2. Extrasubjective phenomena of the body manifested contemporaneously with sensation are different from and opposed to it. These phenomena are multiple; the contemporaneous sensation is single. The actions of the extrasubjective body, such as the movements of the nerves, etc., cannot therefore be the immediate cause of sensations, as we have seen. They can only be phenomena in parallel with them, or their indirect cause.

3. The same principle of feeling experiences several sensations. This sensation of what is multiple cannot be explained unless we admit a simple principle capable of embracing in itself, and all at once, all those various modifications.

442. The first of these three classes of proofs distinguishes and totally separates the soul from the subjective body and from what is extended; the second excludes from the soul all materiality proper to the extrasubjective body; the third excludes from the soul all multiplicity. All three considerations are susceptible of further development. I shall indicate only the development possible to the first two.

Notes

(188) AMS, 92-134.